Please construct each paragraph so that the reader can understand what you focused your observations on without having seen the original questions. - fogleman
Observation/Reflection #1: Starting From the Beginning
During this observation, focus on how class begins. Where is your CT before class begins? What is he or she doing? How and when does your CT establish order and begin class? How is homework from the previous night reviewed/collected/assessed? How does your CT engage students during the opening of the lesson?
Observations:
I observed at Exeter West Greenwich Junior/ Senior High School today for the full school day. I spent the first block period in Mrs. Brocato’s middle school class where she was doing a lesson on organisms. Before class, Mrs. Brocato is always either getting the projector set up with an introductory discussion question, organizing the desks, or standing in the hallways greeting her students. As the students enter her class, they know exactly what to do. It seems like an unspoken order that just happens (I am sure from the first few weeks of school). They come in, write down their homework, get their homework/ assignment that is due out, and start writing in their journals to answer the discussion question. When the bell rings, Mrs. Brocato come in and goes around to each student in the class. She collects the assignment that was due (today was a lab report), and stamps their agenda to be sure that they have written in tonight's homework. She then starts the lesson. Today she started the lesson with the question of "why do we have eyebrows?" and went into a discussion about how humans used to have bushier eyebrows many years ago. This led the student to connect with the idea of evolution and adaptation. She gave the students a handout with a variety of pictures on it and they had to decide which of the object were living and which were non-living. This led to a discussion about what makes something a living thing. She went on to give a demonstration, lighting a candle, and describing the candle like many of the students had described a living thing to prove that in science it is very important to be careful in describing something. She then introduced the activity, where they went through a stack of pictures of living things and put them into categories just like scientists when they group organisms into families, classes, etc. They talked about Greek and Latin names and were instructed to make up their own names for their favorite organism, which they wrote on the board. The next part of the lesson consisted of Mrs. Brocato reading a few pages from the book and demonstrating the reading technique of “chunking.” She read, they picked out the main ideas and she guided them to taking notes on the reading. To conclude the lesson, she went back to the original handout and had her students clarify the misconceptions that they had at the beginning of the class. I observed this same lesson with a different class during the last period of the day. I also observed a high school physical science class, a high school advisory period, Mrs. Brocato’s advisory period, and her enrichment class.
Reflections:
Again I had a great day at EWG. I spent a lot of time with Mrs. Brocato and I tried to observe some high school classes as well but Mrs. Ward has been out the past two times that I have been visiting. Some things that I noticed during Mrs. Brocato’s lesson was that she used the handout at the beginning of class as a pre-assessment for the lesson to see what her students knew about living things. One class did know some key terms that the other class did not, which allowed her to tweak her lesson a little based on what her students already knew. She told me that with block scheduling it is important to break up the class time. What she likes to do it break it up into three parts. During the lesson that I observed, one part was the introduction and demonstration, one part was the group work with grouping and naming, and the last part was the reading and taking notes. She said that these thee parts can be interchangeable, based on how the students are doing. An example would be if they seem like they need to get up, do the group work second and then the notes. Overall, I had a great day and I was able to see a lot of different aspects of teaching, including the advisor and enrichment classes.
Class Topic: Living vs. Non-living Organisms
Grade: 7
Observed by: Beth McArdle
Observation/Reflection #1: Starting From the Beginning
During this observation, focus on how class begins. Where is your CT before class begins? What is he or she doing? How and when does your CT establish order and begin class? How is homework from the previous night reviewed/collected/assessed? How does your CT engage students during the opening of the lesson?Observations:
I observed at Exeter West Greenwich Junior/ Senior High School today for the full school day. I spent the first block period in Mrs. Brocato’s middle school class where she was doing a lesson on organisms. Before class, Mrs. Brocato is always either getting the projector set up with an introductory discussion question, organizing the desks, or standing in the hallways greeting her students. As the students enter her class, they know exactly what to do. It seems like an unspoken order that just happens (I am sure from the first few weeks of school). They come in, write down their homework, get their homework/ assignment that is due out, and start writing in their journals to answer the discussion question. When the bell rings, Mrs. Brocato come in and goes around to each student in the class. She collects the assignment that was due (today was a lab report), and stamps their agenda to be sure that they have written in tonight's homework. She then starts the lesson. Today she started the lesson with the question of "why do we have eyebrows?" and went into a discussion about how humans used to have bushier eyebrows many years ago. This led the student to connect with the idea of evolution and adaptation. She gave the students a handout with a variety of pictures on it and they had to decide which of the object were living and which were non-living. This led to a discussion about what makes something a living thing. She went on to give a demonstration, lighting a candle, and describing the candle like many of the students had described a living thing to prove that in science it is very important to be careful in describing something. She then introduced the activity, where they went through a stack of pictures of living things and put them into categories just like scientists when they group organisms into families, classes, etc. They talked about Greek and Latin names and were instructed to make up their own names for their favorite organism, which they wrote on the board. The next part of the lesson consisted of Mrs. Brocato reading a few pages from the book and demonstrating the reading technique of “chunking.” She read, they picked out the main ideas and she guided them to taking notes on the reading. To conclude the lesson, she went back to the original handout and had her students clarify the misconceptions that they had at the beginning of the class. I observed this same lesson with a different class during the last period of the day. I also observed a high school physical science class, a high school advisory period, Mrs. Brocato’s advisory period, and her enrichment class.Reflections:
Again I had a great day at EWG. I spent a lot of time with Mrs. Brocato and I tried to observe some high school classes as well but Mrs. Ward has been out the past two times that I have been visiting. Some things that I noticed during Mrs. Brocato’s lesson was that she used the handout at the beginning of class as a pre-assessment for the lesson to see what her students knew about living things. One class did know some key terms that the other class did not, which allowed her to tweak her lesson a little based on what her students already knew. She told me that with block scheduling it is important to break up the class time. What she likes to do it break it up into three parts. During the lesson that I observed, one part was the introduction and demonstration, one part was the group work with grouping and naming, and the last part was the reading and taking notes. She said that these thee parts can be interchangeable, based on how the students are doing. An example would be if they seem like they need to get up, do the group work second and then the notes. Overall, I had a great day and I was able to see a lot of different aspects of teaching, including the advisor and enrichment classes.Class Topic: Living vs. Non-living Organisms
Grade: 7
Observed by: Beth McArdle